


Candlelight

by sammakku



Category: Ralph Breaks the Internet - Fandom, Wreck-It Ralph (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Identity Issues, Main Universe, Mental Breakdown, Racing, Ralph Breaks the Internet Spoilers, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Spoilers, identity crisis, sugar rush - Freeform, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 19:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17946098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammakku/pseuds/sammakku
Summary: To be different in Sugar Rush is a death sentence; hence why Candlehead had to figure out what was wrong with her, and fast.





	Candlelight

**Author's Note:**

> ~ Takes place post-Ralph Breaks the Internet & mild spoilers for Ralph Breaks the Internet spoilers ~

_“...Coming in 9th place is Candlehead! And that concludes our Random Roster, folks! Have a great night!”_

As her cart slowed to a stop, Candlehead removed her helmet and stared up at the leaderboard; 9th place _again._ She was barely making it on the roster lately, and flying by the seat of her pants wasn’t going to keep her in it for much longer.

Candlehead was never the best, and she knew that. She wasn’t the fastest either, which was something else she was acutely aware of. She knew there’d come a day like this where she would be falling behind and her friends would literally leave her in the dust… Speaking of friends, Taffyta and Rancis were neck-and-neck for the third time this week. This race, Rancis was lucky enough to get first, but barely. Candlehead found herself staring at their names and suddenly felt her stomach do a somersault.

Her head finally forced itself to look away from the screen. Her eyes quickly landed on her friends laughing over by the finish line. The two began to head up the exit path, and Candlehead quickly realized they were heading to Tapper’s for a celebratory rootbeer like they always did. Normally, she’d run after them both and call out for them to wait for her, but today… today she couldn’t go with them.

She needed to practice. She needed to get better. She didn’t have a choice now, not if she wanted to stay on the roster. In all honesty, she was scared of what her friends might think if she didn’t make it in; Candlehead _already_ embarrassed herself daily,  so she couldn’t run the risk of doing it at another Random Roster.

The kart’s engine gently grumbled as she started it up again, and within seconds she sped down the track again. Her exhaust pipes ruptured with sparks as she shifted into her highest gear. Candlehead’s foot pressed harder and harder against her pedal and pinned it against the driver’s side floor. She tried her hardest to focus in on driving, so she could become an “extension of her kart” like she had been advised to so many times before. For once, it seemed to work.

Candlehead easily maneuvered her kart about and avoided obstacles left in the road from the previous race. Soon, her eyes began to narrow into slits as she spotted a fast-approaching curve. She jerked her steering wheel and slid into a drift; but, just like most things Candlehead tried to do, it failed miserably. Instead of smoothly drifting and continuing on, her kart tilted, and then quickly fell into a spin. In an instant, the spell was broken and Candlehead was back to driving as she always had: messily.

Candlehead anxiously stomped on her brakes, but this only made things worse for her, “Oh, nutterbutter!” She whined, “Come on, come on, Candlehead, think!” She looked up at the world spinning around her… which in result caused her to get dizzy. She let go of the stirring wheel to hold her head, and promptly slide off the road and into a peppermint tree.

***

A long while passed since Candlehead crashed; she hadn’t wheeled her now-ruined kart back to her home, instead choosing to curl up against it with her head buried in her knees. Her helmet rested on the ground beside her as she softly wept and wondered: What was she doing wrong?

Why couldn’t she do anything right?

Candlehead knew she wasn’t the smartest or the most graceful, but she _never_ thought she was _this incompetent._ She was programmed to race, to at least try and be the best, but here she was, always being the worse.  

In all honesty, it was a tad shocking that Candlehead had just had this thought now; not only was Candlehead a terrible racer, but she wasn't the smartest kid either. She was clumsy, too, and always took forever to understand simple jokes.

But understanding a joke and being one were two different things, and Candlehead was _definitely_ a joke.

As Candlehead continued to sob, she didn’t realize that someone had been watching her; she didn’t realize that that same person then approached and sat beside her, not until they gently whispered, “Are you okay?”

Candlehead naturally flinched, and quickly picked her head up. Then, she spotted her: the Princess-and-or-President Vanellope von Schweetz sat next to her. Her eyebrows were furrowed and she looked genuinely concerned for Candlehead.

Which, thinking about it, was rather shocking; Candlehead had bullied her for years, but… here she was, ready to comfort and come to her aid.

Embarrassed, she sat up straight and rubbed her strained eyes quickly. She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve and tried her best to compose herself for the time being, “I’m okay,” She whispered. Her voice was unbelievably tense, “I jus’ crashed and hurt my knee.”

“You’re really bad at lying,” Vanellope responded, causing Candlehead to flinch once more and bow her head again. Vanellope scooched closer to Candlehead, focusing in on her candle on top of her head, “Your candle’s out.”

Candlehead’s eyes welled up with tears again. She covered her face with her hands and began to softly sob again; Vanellope began to realize how unprepared to comfort Candlehead she was.

“Hey, don’t cry…” Vanellope stood up and looked around for something to light the candle again, “We’ll fix it, it’s easy to fix anyway-- hey, doesn’t your kart blast out fire or something?”

Candlehead then shook her head. She looked up at Vanellope and let her tears fall freely now, “It’s not that… I got ninth place today-”

“Hey, you made it on the roster, that’s good-”

“-for the 7th time in a row.”

“...oh.”

“And I- I think…” Candlehead’s breath picked up drastically, “I- I think… m- maybe I’m too s- stupid to keep racing, because every time I try something goes _wrong,_ Vanellope! I’m nothing like everyone else, nothing! I’m...  different…” Candlehead concluded. Her heart felt heavy and there was a pit in her stomach now, but at least she told _someone_ how she felt, “I’m just a nobody.”

There was a long beat of silence. Vanellope focused on Candlehead’s forever-melting tires and tried to think of something to say. Feeling different… she knew a lot about that. She didn’t know if Candlehead realized how ironic the situation was (and, well, she probably didn’t, knowing Candlehead).

The two suddenly made eye contact, and the silence continued for a second longer before Vanellope finally spoke, “You’re… not a nobody, CH, you’re just kind of… slow,” Vanellope sighed and crossed her arms; that didn’t sound too nice. She needed a way to cheer Candlehead up and fast. She knew she wouldn’t feel better until she got better at racing, but clearly practicing wasn’t working out; Candlehead always seemed to mess up at the last second, whether that was getting lost or crashing into something.

And, in a weird way, it reminded Vanellope of…

“...Wait,” Vanellope said suddenly. She stared at Candlehead, and her eyes quickly grew to the size of plates. She stepped forward, “What if somethin’s wrong with your code? What if that’s why you always mess up last second? What if you’re…”

“A glitch,” Candlehead finished, looking as equally shocked as Vanellope. She forced herself to her feet and stepped towards Vanellope as well, “D- do you really-- but I don’t--”

“Well, okay, maybe you aren’t _exactly_ a glitch, but there’s this thing in Slaughter Race called the Dead Zone, and it’s this weird part of the map that’s not done yet. Shank says she saw the code, and it’s super weird and empty… maybe your code’s all messed up like that!”

Another beat of silence, this time a much shorter one; Candlehead slowly nodded her head and stepped closer again, “I think you’re right. Do you think it’s worth it to go and see? Maybe we… we could finish it!” She suggested, her voice picking up in excitement. She bounced slightly and her candle lit back up on its own, “Oh, please, Vanny? Please?”

Vanellope reached out and took Candlehead’s hand. She turned and jabbed her thumb towards the palace, “Yeah, let’s go! The castle’s right around the corner.”

***

“You shouldn’t be down here,” Sour Bill’s voice droned to the two young racers as he lead them towards the code room, “Changing the code is very dangerous; you know that first hand.”

Vanellope patted his head, “Billy-boy, my old chum, don’t you worry your green little body! We’ll be careful, and we’ll only be a few minutes.”

“Whatever you say, Madame President.”

As the trio approached the large steel door keeping them from the code, Candlehead quickly became enthralled with the wires lining the walls. Their blue glow was the only thing illuminating the hallway (aside from her candle); Candlehead begin to wonder how this pretty little area stayed hidden from them for so long.

Candlehead looked back down at Sour Bill as he finished tying a twizzler rope around her waist. The door was wide open, and Vanellope stood on the edge of it. She held her hand out again, and Candlehead took it.

“On three, okay?” Vanellope pulled her to her side, “One, two-”

And, in perfect Vanellope fashion, she jumped without warning.

Candlehead let out a scream unlike any other she had before. She squeezed her eyes shut as they tumbled through the dark abyss in front of them. Without thinking, she shifted and wrapped her arms around Vanellope and held on for dear life.

Vanellope rolled her eyes.

The two only fell for a couple seconds, and when they were done, Vanellope instantly headed for the thousands of boxes of code ahead of them. She tried her best to swim while Candlehead still clung to her. Squinting, she pushed her way past the various mundane codes until coming across exactly what she was looking for: the Racers.

“Hey, we’re here you know,” Vanellope said, then glitched out of Candlehead’s arms.

Candlehead slowly and cautiously opened her eyes. She blinked, and looked around at all the harsh neon lights; she was absolutely beside herself in awe. This room had her everything in it; all of the world’s code, all her friends’ and…

“Is that mine?” Candlehead asked, pointing to a green box that was smaller than the rest and off to the side.

Vanellope swam her way over to it. She grabbed hold of it and gave a curt nod, “This is it!” She rubbed it with her sleeve and squinted, “ _Candlehead S._ You have a last name?”  

“Huh? No, I don’t think I do...” Candlehead moved to Vanellope’s side. She took the code from Vanellope carefully. Her stomach began to knot up like it had been all day, “...should we open it?”

Vanellope nodded. She reached over and gave the code a gentle double tap; it moved out of Candlehead’s hands and opened up like a book. In an instant, Candlehead’s ultimate fear was confirmed… she was unfinished.

Now, most for most racers, you’d expect to see thousands or millions of icons depicting various assets of each racer, all connected by thin threads and working together to create who they were and how they raced.

Sure, Candlehead had these icons; in fact, she had lots! But alas, she seemed to be missing quite a lot as well. There were threads that just dangled on their own, waiting for their boxes to be put in. Simply put, Candlehead was defective.

Candlehead moved back as she felt her stomach knot up again, just like it had been all day. She looked at Vanellope and her breath began to pick up, “Vanny…”

Vanellope bit her lip as she looked at Candlehead, “Hey, it’s okay! Look…” She reached out and placed her hand on Candlehead’s shoulder, “Let’s look around! Maybe… Maybe your code’s lost in here somewhere!”

“Lost?!” Candlehead moved away from Vanellope, “What do you mean lost?! How would it get lost?!”

“I-- You know Turbo used to mess with the code, maybe he--”  
“Oh, would you shut up?!” Candlehead snapped, “Can’t you see it?! I’m _unfinished!_ I shouldn’t even be apart of the roster-- or the _game_!” Candlehead moved around Vanellope and closed her code. She began to make her way back to the door.

Vanellope followed, “Where are you going?!” She called after her, “We can fix it! Let’s at least try to find them? What if the rest of your code’s hidden away somewhere?”

“No!” Candlehead began to pull herself back towards the door, finding this method much faster than just swimming, “Just-- forget it! Forget I ever asked you about this! I quit!”

“You quit?!” Vanellope repeated. She caught up just as Candlehead climbed out of the Code Room, “You can’t quit!”

Candlehead scoffed. She turned to face Vanellope and her fists clenched, “That’s a load of… of phooey! Tell someone else to race for me tomorrow!”

Before Vanellope could retort or argue her case, Candlehead took off, leaving Vanellope alone, and frankly at a loss, in the hallway.

  



End file.
